How to create this lens effect from Bob Dylan - Bringing It All Back Home album cover?

[u/tripleneon]

[u/kscandude]

Looks like the photog shot through the bottom of a drinking glass to me.

[u/Conscious-Coconut-16 → u/kscandude]

Yes indeed, the drinking glass! Even if this is not how it was done, it is simple and it will work.

[u/TheKingMonkey]

There’s a whole blog on it here.

The TLDR is it’s a composite image and the photographer was messing around with his lens.

[u/BlueberryWasps → u/TheKingMonkey]

In 2019 Kramer explained the technique: “I remembered a picture that Richard Avedon made – that was a star photographer (laughs). What he did was a picture of Brigitte Bardot. He photographed her with her hair loose and then put his hand over the middle of the picture while the thing was closed, so that she wouldn’t get blurred. And he then moved the easel like this (makes a movement with his hand from side to side, without moving his wrist) and he made blurriness in her hair, like waves in the ocean.”

“So, I build a construction for my view camera – the one where you put a black cloth over your head – and then I put the glass in front of the lens on a 45 degree angle, so it won’t make any reflection back. I got black paper and scissors. I focused my picture […], I would take one picture with speed light and get everything. Then I would go to Tungsten light, so I could make a one-second exposure, while I turned the back of the camera. But I had to put a piece of black paper on the glass on the 45-degree angle.”

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so, a bit confused. he’s putting a hand or piece of paper over the middle, and then sort of wiggling the back of the camera while taking another exposure? thanks for posting this btw, great article

[u/hofmann419 → u/BlueberryWasps]

I think i got it now. He shot it on large format with a rotating back. These types of cameras have a back where the actual film sits and then the front part with the lens and shutter. And rotating backs were invented to allow photographers to switch from landscape to portrait easily. In front of the camera, he had that glass in a 45 degree angle (like a teleprompter).

So first he had the rotating back perfectly straight and shot the first image with a flash. Then he switched to the tungsten light. To make sure that the center of the image stayed sharp, he covered that glass plate with black paper. Once that was set up, he did another one second exposure while turning the back of the camera.

[u/Trzcionka-Babola → u/TheKingMonkey]

that tracks, always figured there was more going on than just a single exposure

[u/jmbeane]

Looks like it was shot through a drinking glass

[u/CeaUelKami]

Large lens prism with a hole/flat-section in the middle
or a pane of glass smeared with vaseline
https://www.amazon.ca/Concept-Spiral-Whirlpool-Optical-Special/dp/B0D9VHCLW9

[u/ginnymorlock]

vaseline around the edge of a filter (not the lens!). Old trick.

[u/japantoanmaster]

Ok, first you'll need some LDS

[u/kscandude → u/japantoanmaster]

Best to look in Utah for that 😂

[u/japantoanmaster → u/kscandude]

Duly noted. In fact I'm friends with the entire Osmond family including Doug 😅

[u/AKchaos49 → u/japantoanmaster]

Local Development Strategy?
Lightning Detection System?
Laser Docking System?
Launch Detection Satellite?

[u/japantoanmaster → u/AKchaos49]

Latter-day Saints

[u/marslander-boggart]

A plastic filter with a center hole. Or even a plastic prismatic filter with a center hole. You can find those in online and offline stores.